Seeing the U.S. through the eyes of Facebook

Everyone knows how the United States is geographically divided into states, counties, and cities. But how is the United States connected socially? Pete Warden has taken data from Facebook, the popular social network site, and has visualized the results. He divides the country into seven regions which he christens as Stayathomia, Dixie, Greater Texas, Nomadic West, Mormonia, Socalistan, and Pacifica. I particularly like the name “Stay At Home”. That fits for a region that is blanketed by snow right now. One thing that he lacks is some understanding of the culture that he has defined. He does not understand why Dixie loves the name Ashley or why Mormonia loves the Twilight series. From his article:

Orbiting around Dallas, the ties of the Gulf Coast towns and Oklahoma and Arkansas make them look more Texan than Southern. Unlike Stayathomia, there’s a definite central city to this cluster, otherwise most towns just connect to their immediate neighbors.

God shows up, but always comes in below the Dallas Cowboys for Texas proper, and other local sports teams outside the state.

via : How to split up the US
via : Facebook Profiles for Cities

This story written by Paul Adams

Paul Adams manages an award-winning team for a federal high performance computing facility where he has worked for 15 years. He loves getting his hands on the latest visualization and computer hardware, astronomy, aerospace engineering, working with the poor, and ringing cowbells.

Graphics facebook, infographic